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I don't agree what happened to him based on his "hack" and deem AT&T's (and the legal system's) actions despicable in this manner. Reporting on his "hacker her

I don't agree what happened to him based on his "hack" and deem AT&T's (and the legal system's) actions despicable in this manner. Reporting on his "hacker hero antics" without putting it in context of what a personality he really is is, in my book, whitewashing of history and engaging in revisionism.

shakna 8y ago
Tone can be hard to convey over the internet - try and imagine this conversation is happening in a cafe over a coffee. I'm calm, and not trying to disagree with you for internet points or anything of the like. Just trying to have a conversation. I just lack the skill to write things in a sensitive enough manner. --- Whilst I agree with you in part, I also believe that over-emphasising personality traits or behaviours of a person also engages in revisionism. One should be able to view an event entirely separate from the person, if the person's generalised behaviour isn't relevant. We don't need to think about the man at all, in my own opinion, in this particular case. Redact his name if you have concerns that the man is unworthy of attention. Adding complaints of a person to any mention of them is calling for jury and judgement. It's a distraction from what's important. It takes an event that should be discussed and explored, and twists it so you are forced to take sides about the person. You can use these tactics to derail any conversation. It's a debating tactic commonly used in politics to avoid answering questions. It might be better in future just to say something along the lines of "Aside: Can we not use his name? The guy is actually a racist, and has a pretty deplorable past." We don't want to get lost in the debate of a man's merits, when his actions may themselves be meritorious.
- watwut 8y ago
  But when one claims that weev did it as white hat "to let them know about vulnerability" then personality traits and behaviors become relevant. They are not relevant for judging whether scrapping data from unprotected 14mil urls should be seen as hack. They are relevant to whether suggestion that he was well intentioned white hat doing public service claims sounds naive or likely. It matters when I have to decide whether I will buy his framing of events and motivations or not. Such claims very much existed and were predominant interpretation of evens in circles I was in. Edited to add: then you had weev using his bigger fame and sort of new credibility to try to cause further harm to person he harassed somewhere around going to/from prison. So to me, it makes sense for people seen it at the time to jump into these discussions to prevent further rise of credibility.

shakna 8y ago

Tone can be hard to convey over the internet - try and imagine this conversation is happening in a cafe over a coffee. I'm calm, and not trying to disagree with you for internet points or anything of the like. Just trying to have a conversation. I just lack the skill to write things in a sensitive enough manner. --- Whilst I agree with you in part, I also believe that over-emphasising personality traits or behaviours of a person also engages in revisionism. One should be able to view an event entirely separate from the person, if the person's generalised behaviour isn't relevant. We don't need to think about the man at all, in my own opinion, in this particular case. Redact his name if you have concerns that the man is unworthy of attention. Adding complaints of a person to any mention of them is calling for jury and judgement. It's a distraction from what's important. It takes an event that should be discussed and explored, and twists it so you are forced to take sides about the person. You can use these tactics to derail any conversation. It's a debating tactic commonly used in politics to avoid answering questions. It might be better in future just to say something along the lines of "Aside: Can we not use his name? The guy is actually a racist, and has a pretty deplorable past." We don't want to get lost in the debate of a man's merits, when his actions may themselves be meritorious.

watwut 8y ago
But when one claims that weev did it as white hat "to let them know about vulnerability" then personality traits and behaviors become relevant. They are not relevant for judging whether scrapping data from unprotected 14mil urls should be seen as hack. They are relevant to whether suggestion that he was well intentioned white hat doing public service claims sounds naive or likely. It matters when I have to decide whether I will buy his framing of events and motivations or not. Such claims very much existed and were predominant interpretation of evens in circles I was in. Edited to add: then you had weev using his bigger fame and sort of new credibility to try to cause further harm to person he harassed somewhere around going to/from prison. So to me, it makes sense for people seen it at the time to jump into these discussions to prevent further rise of credibility.